Category: Education Scotland

English as an additional language – celebrating and supporting

Over 75 different languages are currently spoken by pupils in Falkirk Council’s Early Learning and Childcare (ELC) Centres and Schools. The EAL team is part of the Additional Support Needs Outreach Service and works with pupils whose first or home language is not English.

Our EAL team support pupils who are enrolling in or who are already attending a Falkirk Council ELC centre/class or school. Their support helps pupils who may be beginners in English or pupils who speak English more fluently but are not achieving their full academic potential. They work with schools and families to meet the needs of learners for whom English is an additional language.

Please visit the EAL team blog page here for more information and support with any queries you may have about teaching and supporting your pupils. All EAL professional learning from CPD Manager is listed on our 2022-23  professional learning menu which you can visit using this link Professional Learning for Literacy and English – Welcome to Falkirk Literacy (glowscotland.org.uk).

 

News from our National Literacy Network Meeting June 2022

This blog post shares key information and opportunities from the last National Literacy Network meeting which took place on 8th June 2022.

AGENDA: Welcome
• Love to Read Project – Dr Sarah McGeown
• Break Out Room Discussion -Focus on progression Early through First Level
• ES and Partner Updates
• Future NLN / LECN Dates

Love to Read Project – Dr Sarah McGeown, University of Edinburgh – This is a programme created by researchers, teachers and children to inspire and sustain a love of reading. It draws upon theory, research, children’s insights and teachers’ professional and pedagogical knowledge, expertise and experience. More information about this programme can be found here and it will be freely available from March 2023.

 

 

 

 

 

Sarah also shared reading for enjoyment links below:

For teachers/school leaders: McGeown, S., & Wilkinson, K. (2021). Inspiring and sustaining reading for pleasure in children and young people: A guide for teachers and school leaders. UKLA Minibook. Available here:

For children: Connecting with Fictional Characters: The Power of Books. Available here.

The final literacy development shared by Sarah was the Move to Read programme which is a collaborative research project between the University of Edinburgh and schools within Edinburgh City Council. It aims to co-create physically active early literacy activities (P1) which are embodied –  more information here.

Further information about the value of participatory research involving researchers, teachers and pupils can be found in The University of Edinburgh blog here. 

Focus on progression Early through First Level

Education Scotland colleagues shared national pupil attainment data from 2020-21, so that we could examine these as a group. The breakout discussions were used the questions below to explore our theories around why there was a dip at first level across literacy.

  • What are the theories around why the dip happens?
  • What are the challenges to effective learning (P1 – P4)?
  • How do we strengthen understanding of progression through this level?
  • In what ways do we support pedagogy at this level?

ES and Partner Updates

  1. Cabinet Secretary announcement December 2021: National Response to Improving Literacy group (NRIL)
    “Scotland already has the National Response to Improving Mathematics Partnership Board, and we will set up a National Response to Improving Literacy group. Both groups will examine the existing landscape in Scotland and internationally, seeking opportunities to enhance professional learning for teachers and the classroom experiences for young people”
  2. Themes are beginning to emerge from the consultation done so far by the NRIL. These will be developed and shared over the next months.

Future NLN / LECN Dates

LECN (Literacy and English Curriculum Network) meeting 16.6.22 – Gender and Literacy Motivation

The next National Literacy Network meeting takes place on Thursday 15th September 2022

 

Literacy Remote Teaching Support Source Summary – January 2021

Falkirk Children’s Services Literacy Team would like to wish all colleagues a Happy New Year and heart-felt good wishes for 2021. This succinct post collates sources of support for remote literacy teaching and learning from local, regional collaborative and national sources. Please contact us using the email details at the end of this post for further support or to share other valuable sources with Falkirk colleagues.

Falkirk Children’s Services:

This blog is the main source of Falkirk literacy news and support – we use it alongside the Children’s Services Comminucations which are regularly emailed to all settings.

Click here to visit our Literacy Glow group and here to visit the Service Support & Improvement Hub where key literacy policies and documents (such as our Literacy and English Progression Pathways) are available to all Falkirk Glow users. Click here to see our Jack and the Beanstalk storyline Family Learning Pack and here for our Dream Holiday storyline Family Learning Pack. Both of these packs were designed to ease the practicalities and challenges of remote learning for all and to bring some fun and togetherness into family learning.

New Family Learning packs are planned and we will make these available asap.

Our December update has a resume of all upcoming professional learning opportunities for literacy – find it here.

Forth Valley and West Lothian Regional Collaborative:

FVWLRIC Blog – Literacy pages – click here

Wakelet of useful sources of support created by Dr Janet Adam – literacy lead officer – click here.

Education Scotland – National Remote Learning support one stop page for all teaching support click here – specific literacy support:

Literacy and English Scotland Learns page for practitioners (all levels) – click here

Literacy and English Scotland Learns page for parents/carers – click here 

This list of useful sources is linked to each of the literacy organisers and was created by Julie Jamieson, development officer for literacy and English Education Scotland.

Click here to visit the wakelet which was shared with the National LIteracy Network by Angela Noble who has responsibility for literacy in North Ayrshire. Angela collaborated with Lindsay Littleson, author of The Titanic Detective Agency to create a unit of work which fits well with remote/family learning and links well with social study of the Titanic and society/the world at that time.

Your Falkirk Literacy Team –

Carol Turnbull, Team Manager, carol.turnbull@falkirk.gov.uk

Yvonne Manning, Principal Librarian, yvonne.manning@falkirk.gov.uk

Yvonne McBlain, Education Support Officer, yvonne.mcblain@falkirk.gov.uk

Louise Amos and Judith Davies, Support Teachers for Specific Learning Differences louise.amos@falkirk.gov.uk judith.davies@falkirk.gov.uk

Literacy News Update – December 2020

This blog post shares literacy news and information about Falkirk, Forth Valley and West Lothian Regional Collaborative and Education Scotland developments and professional learning.

Falkirk Happenings:

Click here to view the Talking and Listening and Reading Comprehension Recovery Phase support materials created August 2020 (Scroll down to Literacy – Glow login required)

Click here to read about the Falkirk LIteracy Network meeting for this term – contact yvonne.mcblain@falkirk.gov.uk if you would like to join this network.

Our second Literacy Blether with our support for learning colleagues takes place on 15th December. Our first meeting in September helped us identify and discuss how our learners had progressed over lock down and what support they still needed. Working virtually in Teams gave us a safe but valuable way to share ideas and resources which might support our learners as well as our thoughts about useful professional learning. Judith Davies, Louise Amos and Yvonne McBlain have taken forward the actions identified including collaboration with colleagues in our RIC and at Education Scotland.

Upcoming Professional Learning – shaped by the above meetings plus our analysis of SNSA autumn 2019 data:

LIT 7-2021 Support for learning literacy  Blether 15th December 4-5pm

LIT 5a-2021 Let’s talk about primary 7 SNSA data 10th December 4-5pm and another opportunity LIT 5b-2021 on 26th January 2021 4-5 pm.

LIT 4b-2021 Let’s talk about primary 4 SNSA data 21 st January 2021 4-5pm

LIT 6a-2021 Introducing the new PM Literacy Assessment 19th January 2021  4-5pm and another opportunity LIT 6b-2021 on 4th February 2021 4-5 pm

Watch out for LIT 8-2021  1st February 2021 we hope to offer an information session about Reciprocal Reading for those who want to find out more about the training available via our Regional collaborative literacy team.

Forth Valley and West Lothian Regional Collaborative Happenings:

Falkirk’s literacy team members – Yvonne Manning, Carol Turnbull and Yvonne McBlain attended each FVWLRIC literacy meeting and contributed to the ongoing development of the literacy development plan – click here to read more via the FVWLRIC blog.  Contact yvonne.mcblain@falkirk.gov.uk with any matters you would like to be shared with this forum.

At the end of October, Janet Adam, literacy lead officer, FVWLRIC, co-delivered LIT 3-2021 Let’s talk about reading – in Falkirk and within our regional collaborative with Yvonne McBlain.  As a result of this course and previous literacy updates, Janet is now working directly with a number of Falkirk primary schools to support their use of Reciprocal Reading (click here to read more).

Janet and Helen Fairlie, senior development officer for Literacy and English Education Scotland, have established a  FVWLRIC principal teacher of English network to promote collaboration and support across the secondary sector.

Upcoming FVWLRIC Professional Learning:

Dr. Kylie Bradfield (Stirling University) will deliver further Reciprocal Reading sessions for primary practitioners. These will focus on “Teaching Grammar in Context” and take place: Monday 11th – word level, 18th – sentence level & 25th January 2021 – 5-5.40 pm – text level. These are free to all via Zoom https://t.co/egNYBYupAl?amp=1  Meeting ID: 814 7023 2439 Passcode: 8KH99h further info available from FVWLRIC blog post  and from Twitter here .  The sessions will be recorded and will be available on You Tube afterwards.

Janet has prepared a Winter themed wakelet collection of teaching resources for those adopting Reciprocal Reading approaches – click here to view and watch out for further professional learning information sessions about Reciprocal Reading.

Introduction to disciplinary literacy webinar 28th January 2021 for secondary practitioners 4-5 pm for more information click here

Education Scotland Literacy Happenings:

Helen Fairlie is our FVWLRIC Education Scotland literacy team member and we are grateful for her support with a number of the developments above. Posts in this blog will keep you updated on what was shared by Helen and her Education Scotland literacy team colleagues at National LIteracy Network meetings. Both Yvonne(s) and Carol attend these meetings and the more informal drop in opportunities which Helen and Janet jointly chair. 

Click here to access recently published SQA  support resources – audio presentations and an updated “Common Questions” document.

Click here to access a list of online support sources for blended learning in literacy. These were collated by Julie Jamieson, literacy development officer.

Upcoming Professional Learning highlighted or organised by Education Scotland:

Recording of the recent webinar from Glasgow University School of Critical Studies on Understanding English Grammar click here to view. The access passcode is: IEeV2&s^ and the webinar begins from around 9 min 30 sec:

Click here to view the Literacy in the Outdoors webinar which took place in November.

Click here to visit the Education Scotland professional learning blog where the latest opportunities are promoted.

Literacy Support for Falkirk Practitioners Professional Learning During COVID 19

This post collates sources of professional learning for Literacy and English and was compiled by Yvonne McBlain, curriculum support officer with central team colleagues from Falkirk Children’s services. We hope these offer valuable support in these challenging times, but please email yvonne.mcblain@falkirk.gov.uk with comments or additional ideas.

This blog is our main Falkirk source of information about literacy and English in our establishments – you can browse examples of Falkirk practice as well as local and national updates. Our Falkirk Literacy and English Glow group  (login required) also stores hundreds of documents and ideas which we can’t share on this public platform.

Click on the text/images below to browse each site.

Education Scotland colleagues have collated a  links to online sources of materials for literacy in their Professional Learning Wakelet

These include sources such as BBC Bitesize, Scottish Booktrust, Education Scotland sites, etc.

This is a quick link to the early years Wakelet

This one takes you to the primary Wakelet

Secondary 1-S3 BGE is here and Senior Phase is available by clicking this link.

Our Forth Valley & West Lothian Regional Collaborative Literacy group have also created a blog which is full of sources and materials to extend professional knowledge and support the adaptations to practice currently required of us. These materials were designed to support all practitioners – whether teaching from home, or working in our hubs.

Yvonne Manning, principal librarian, Falkirk Children’s Services and her wonderful team have moved our Library Resource Service to its new home at our Bothkennar Hub. Click here to visit the Learning Resource Service blog and stay updated on developments including Borrowbox, reading for enjoyment and developing a reading culture.

Louise Amos and Jude Davies, Support Teachers for Specific Learning Differences can be contacted louise.amos@falkirk.gov.uk & judith.davies@falkirk.gov.uk  and have provided the following documents, materials and links to support your professional learning around specific literacy or language difficulties.

CLPL incorporating the Scottish context –

  • Click here to explore online course materials – An Introduction to Inclusive Education
  • Click here to explore Three Dyslexia online learning modules
  • Click here to explore Education Scotland professional learning

Other useful information, links and resources can be found in the Addressing Dyslexia website here.

 

Ursula Busch and Ann McPhilemy from our English as an Additional Language service has also provided the following links:

  • Click here to visit NALDIC – National subject association for EAL
  • Click here for British Council support and advice
  • This link leads to essential reading: Learning in 2+ languages – Guidance which promotes inclusion of bilingual pupils and identifies good practice in supporting bilingual pupils
  • This link leads to and Education Scotland professional learning tool – Supporting bilingualism and English as an additional language
  • Further links and information have been collated here in this document by Ursula – thanks to colleagues in Stirling and Glasgow Councils for the information shared.

Improving literacy across learning in Argyll and Bute

At the National Literacy Network meeting in June 2019, Claire Bryden, Principal Teacher for literacy from Argyll and Bute Council shared literacy developments ongoing with primary and secondary colleagues. The slide above captures the ultimate aim of the strategies being developed – to ensure that:

  1. All practitioners understand the importance of literacy to learning across the curriculum
  2. All practitioners understand the level of challenge required when designing literacy tasks
  3. Literacy is embedded within planning across the school
  4. Literacy learning is made visible to learners
  5. Pupils have an overview of their own literacy across the school
  6. Staff provide feedback on literacy
  7. All staff involved in the assessment of literacy

Click here to view Claire’s full presentation and learn how she is working with others to explore and combine a number of ideas, research sources and tools such as:

  • Supporting emerging literacy inspired by a variety of sources including David Fulton
  • Exploring ideas from research by Sue Ellis on the three domains of literacy
  • The development of pupil vocabulary using the Storyline approach
  • Developing interdisciplinary contexts which integrate STEM/science within relevant historical contexts
  • Defining how these contexts could progress the degree of challenge to pupils’ literacy skills and development across the curriculum in primary and secondary settings (see below)

  • Focus on the development of pupil skills – supporting these by creating simple, effective tools for pupils and staff to use during teaching (see below)

  • Linking all of these developments to aim for a shared, firm understanding of standards and appropriate pace and challenge for literacy across learning
  • Applying Improvement Science methodology to track and evidence impact

Key Messages about Digital Literacy from the National Literacy Network Meeting – June 2019

James Miller, our FV & WL regional collaborative seconded development officer for Digital Skills presented key information and support at the June 2019 National Literacy Network meeting. The slide above captures facts which show the relevance of digital literacy for our young people as they grow. Key points are bulleted below along with useful links:

  • Experiences and Outcomes specific to Digital Literacy and Computing Science have been present in our Technologies curriculum area from the emergence of Curriculum for Excellence. Internet Safety and Cyber Resilience are sub-organisers/elements within Digital Literacy.
  • Since 2017 developments to Technologies  include a review and re-fresh of E & Os & creation of the Technologies Benchmarks
  • Key Digital Literacy documents include: HGIOS 4, Digital Strategy for Scotland refresh, Cyber Resilience Strategy for Scotland, STEM Strategy and…

  • Enhancing Learning and Teaching Through the Use of Digital Technology 2016 supports effective & appropriate use of technology across the curriculum for practitioners in all settings. It has four objectives/areas of focus: Educator Skills, Curriculum and Assessment, Access to Technology and Leadership. The document defines 40 national actions for these and sets out expectations for schools and local authorities.

James highlighted the variety of texts which are digital: emails, films, games, TV programmes, instructions, text messages, blogs, etc. He explored how literacy and digital literacy skills could be bundled or grouped in relevant ways within the broad general education (BGE),  suggesting that pupils could/should be inspired and encouraged to use digital technology in new ways to develop their literacy AND digital literacy skills i.e. naturally occurring interdisciplinary learning opportunities – see slide below with the success criteria.

Click here to view the extracts from his presentation which offer further advice about linking/progressing literacy across learning with digital literacy, including resource suggestions such as Immersive Reader – a Microsoft OneNote tool – click here – which can support development of reading comprehension, fluency and confidence in readers with English as a first or additional language.

 

News from the National Literacy Network Meeting June 2019

Colleagues from the Education Scotland literacy team shared a range of news and updates at the June 2019 National Literacy Network meeting. These are summarised below with links where further information is available. The whole presentation for this section of the meeting can be accessed by clicking here.

  • As part of “Our Corporate Plan”, Education Scotland colleagues will work in regional teams with practitioners and policy makers to “support the changing system within Scotland”. FV&WL regional collaborative senior advisor will be Jackie Halawi, and our senior education officer for literacy is Helen Fairlie. We will also have access to a named SCEL Lead Specialist from the core Professional Learning and Leadership team.
  • Knightsbridge PS, West Lothian won the Scottish Education Raising Attainment in Literacy Award 2019, Blackwood PS, South Lanarkshire and Greengables Nusery & Family Centre, City of Edinburgh were runners up.
  • Seminars specifically linked to raising attainment in literacy can be seen in the slide below for those attending the Scottish Learning Festival in September 2019.

  • The Scottish International Storytelling Festival Community programme runs between 2.9.19 & 2.12.19 . Wednesday 27th November is our nation-wide Story Exchange – schools are asked to dedicate the afternoon to sharing oral tales. What local legends and tales might we share across our authority area? Use this link  to find out more about subsidies to fund visits from storytellers, request free resources, and this link to keep the Scottish Storytelling Form informed of what you are up to as part of the festival or Book Week Scotland.
  • SQA revised English Advanced Higher Course Specification – valid from 2019-20 – is available here and Course Support Notes will be added soon.
  • The recommendations of the Scottish Parliament Education and Skills Committee report on SNSA in primary 1 can be found here (Practitioner Forum recommendations) and here (Scottish Government Review 2019).
  • The National Literacy Professional Learning Community is under construction in Glow. Consultation groups have informed revisions ready for the imminent launch of this valuable new site. Hopefully we will soon be able to access the professional learning, research, resource, support and policy documents it will bring together.
  • The National School Libraries Professional Learning Community is also due for launch very soon and will support school librarians and colleagues undertaking library development with their school – from ELC to secondary schools.